Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Mint’

The market reacted to the big drop in the paper price of silver by a huge increase in Silver Eagle purchases. In one day, the U.S. Mint sold 766,000 Silver Eagles, which is more than double the 379,000 oz Gold Eagles sold to date this entire year. The total U.S. Mint silver sales for the first 3 quarters of the year is 32,251,000.

Canadian Silver Maple Leaf sales for the first half of 2014 surpassed sales by 1.4 million during the same period last year. Sales of Silver Maples were 8.2 million Q1 2014, compared to 6.6 million Q1 2013. Second quarter sales this year were slightly lower at 7.2 million, versus the 7.4 million oz Q2 2013.

It took just one week for the U.S. Mint to sell more Silver Eagles (1,939,500 oz) than all the Gold Eagles sold in 2012, 2013 and 2014 (1,808,000 oz). There is a reason the public is currently buying 100 times more Silver Eagles than Gold Eagles… and it has to do with affordability and leverage.

The Royal Canadian Mint just released their 2013 Annual Report and sales of their Silver Maples were the highest on record. Not only did the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf sales shatter all records in 2013, their percentage gain was twice as much compared to Silver Eagles.

Gold fell 28% in 2013, while silver recorded a 36% decline. It was gold’s first annual drop since 2000 and gold and silver’s worst performance since 1981 and 1984 respectively – But the Perth Mint and the U.S. Mint both saw increased demand for physical gold coins and bars in 2013.

In the 28 years that the U.S. Mint has been producing the Gold and Silver Eagle coins, over 360 million Silver Eagles and 20 million Gold Eagles were sold. This turns out to be a historic Gold – Silver Eagle sales ratio of 18/1.